Miscellaneous

I added a lot of content to the first 3 episodes on top of all the changes that have been made. I guess I've been inspired since this game has finally found its footing, and I keep finding little things to add along the way. There are a whole lot more conversations happening in episode 2, and I find myself really trying to hold back from adding little sidequests for extra experience points.

The intro movie is finished... I'm trying to make a quick edit to it though and coming up a little bit confused.

Episode 4 is well into production now, and I'm almost finished all of the areas for it. I've done a couple cutscenes for it, but I still have a couple more as well before the story portion is finished. One thing the review said this game was doing right was the pacing, so I'm really trying to keep that going. The whole thing has been mapped out, so it's (yet again) just a matter of putting it all together in the project. And episode 5 is also completely planned out, so it won't take too long either (of course, by that time I'll be fully engulfed in the making of EL4, so ya never know).

I still need to do those portrait edits that I had promised for the last demo. Reasons I haven't yet are laziness and fear of Windows 7 rejecting and erasing shit, as it always tends to try to do to me.

One last piece of news: I imported all my resources I had packed away for the sequel, so it will officially carry over player saves from the first game. It will also be released that way, sort of a 2 in 1 game deal (which I wish I had done with the Eden Legacy trilogy). Visually, it'll be quite different though. The graphics are much shinier and more detailed, very cartoony but almost 3dish. I like the test screens I made, so I'll be saving those for the sequel profile whenever I decide it's worth loading on here. There will be more than one character portrait for each character in the sequel, so definitely more visual variety. I'm calling the game FH:T.E., so I'll leave you all to speculate on what that translates to.

Miscellaneous

The redesigning process is nearly complete. I've implemented all but a couple final battles in the third episode, and all that needs to be done after that is editing the battle skills based on my test playing. As I've previously stated, however, the next full demo will not be released until the fourth episode is also completed.

I'm confident that the game runs a lot more smoothly now, and looks much better as well. The experience will feel much different due to the gameplay changes, and I hope the new graphics will also help push players into trying it out, even if they've played through the tech demo and didn't like it. There are new dialogue events too, and I'll probably add some more while I work on the fourth episode.

I've thought a lot about the future of this game, and though I was fairly certain I'd cap it off with a couple expansion (standalone) episodes after the full release... it most likely won't turn out like that. The reason being that I loved the whole "choose what happens to the characters in the next game" idea, and have therefore decided to go ahead with multiple endings that will lead into the sequel. While the sequel will have a much different graphical style and new elements of gameplay, I'll be building it on top of the original FH game so that save states may be carried over to the second one. You'll pretty much be able to determine at the end of this game which characters will make an appearance in the next one. I hope to push the importance of choices a bit more in the sequel.

In the meantime, I'll soon be focusing my attention back on the eden legacy series. FH has taken up way more time than I'd planned, and I can't keep neglecting my main saga.

Miscellaneous

After the review for the tech demo, I was better able to prioritize the many changes that need to be made for this game. I got some better chipsets and started remapping the forest areas for Haddy's episode, and I've made the castle smaller for Fergus. Everything I've done looks much better now, but I'll probably throw in a few panoramas before they're finished.

The next step will be redesigning the gameplay, the most crucial aspect of the rebuilding process. This will mostly mean taking out the tutorials for the now defunct CBS, and implementing new battles (which will take MUCH less time than the failed CBS did). It'll take me a while to revamp these parts and to do a little battle programming, but not months and months like last time.

I made some joke changes as suggested by LWG in his review, but for the most part the dialogue for the main cutscenes will stay the same. I'll add more dialogue for the NPCs as well in the near future (although that will be the last part of the rebuild).

Episode 4 is also being worked on at the same time, and I still plan to include it is the next demo.

It's funny that although the game got a negative review, I got something like 20 more downloads over the last couple days and a few new subscribers as well! I guess people trust that my revamps will be much better... or perhaps they just want to see how truly terrible it is in the current demo's state. Either way, I'm still determined to make this game enjoyable to all, now that I have an idea where I'm going with it.

I'll post some new screens soon of the revamps and some from episode 4.
Episode 4 is being worked on at the same time.

Miscellaneous

To go along with the new screens I added today, I sat down and started on the walkthrough. This will serve as a good start to the official strategy guide/walkthrough that will go along with the full version of the game. I'll also update it when the next demo becomes available. The demo is fairly straightforward, so this wasn't completely necessary, however, I'd like to build off of it for later updates. Also, for those getting frustrated with Midard's areas, this is a quick solution.

20 subscribers! Thanks to all! I'm a little surprised by the low number of downloads, but perhaps that means it's time I worked even faster on the remaining 5 episodes. There have been no more bug reports, so onward I go!

I've started fixing some more graphical problems, which I hope will make the demo eps even better, as well as a few battle implementations. I have also begun episode 4, in which our unlikely heroes finally run into one another. I'm still not completely sure how it will play out, I need to do some writing tonight. I have all of episode 5 planned though, so I'll be able to launch right into that.

To the Eden Legacy fans, that series hasn't taken a backseat in all this. I'm still actively working on the updates and the fourth game, it's just been a little slower than usual is all.

Miscellaneous

So... there haven't been all that many downloads of the tech demo, but it looks like all of the subscribers downloaded it on the first day it became available. So I must thank those people for giving it a try, and can only hope that they enjoyed it.

Secondly, while there isn't much to report in the ways of feedback, the game got a good 5 or 6 subscribers since the download became available, which is a good indication that the demo got new people interested in the game's further developments. I must thank those subscribers as well, as it's the closest thing to feedback I've received so far and definitely serves as encouragement to go onwards.

Finally, special thanks to Lyn for the bug reports. No matter how awesome a job Amerk does in the beta testing phase, I always seem to miss some things/screw more things up lol.

Miscellaneous

It's been way too long. I'm releasing this prototypical demo, which will be changed greatly based on feedback and eventually the CBS will be dissolved. The reason being that it hinders my development process, and it is nowhere near being as impressive as I'd hoped (plus I am having problems with images loading due to Windows 7 being a jerk). I've said this is earlier blogs, but new downloaders will need to know this.

Reviewers:
Please keep in mind that the Haddy's battle balancing is going to be greatly improved for the new version, but I welcome all suggestions related to this and the CBS. I really hope to mold the future releases based on user feedback.

I really hope there are no serious technical issues with this game. I've included the RTP packs just in case downloaders need them. I just can't hold off on this any longer than I have, and it's time to get some real feedback so I can know what is working and what isn't.

Miscellaneous

Amerk tested the demo, and as expected, he found a lot more crucial bugs than I did lol. I've got great notes to go off of though, and a few of my own to add into the mix.

I've pretty much decided to have 2 versions of the demo released. There will be a tech demo, which features the CBS, and a regular demo, which will use tweaked version of the 2k3 default battle system. The CBS is just too flawed, and takes way too much time to program to carry it over into future episodes, but it'll still be nice to give players the opportunity to see what it's all about. Since I'll be releasing the newer episodes individually, you could even play the tech demo and seamlessly move on to future episodes without missing anything crucial anyway. This will also allow me to release the episodes faster than I otherwise would be able to.

Miscellaneous

So, I was finally able to change the permissions setting for rm2k and 2k3. What did this do? It ERASED everything I have done on the game since transferring it to this computer 3 months ago or so. All that work gone, finished, dunzo. I am so stressed right now... I'd say that's a good 45% of the demo lost, completely. I'm also worried about the state of Eden Legacy 1.3, although it's just minor bugs that plague it at the moment.

Windows 7 security is ridiculously awful. It saved a version of this game that shouldn't even have existed anymore, and then saved it OVER the full, good copy of the game that I've worked so hard on. Could I have prevented this from happening by backing it up? That was exactly the problem, this happened as a result of my trying to back it up and it not letting me because of the permissions controls.

What happens now?
This is too good a project to discard completely, but I can't bear to remake everything that I've done over the last little while. I'm going to take some time off before getting back to this, even though my notes for it are nowhere to be found either. When I go back to it, I'll make it better. I don't know how, but I will. It's just a shame, I was very proud of everything that I'd done for it... all gone.

Anyways, The re-haul will not use the CBS, and it will have all characters fighting battles instead of just the 2. Of course I'll add some special bells and whistles to the battles to make them unique, which was what I tried to do before with the CBS anyhow. I will also change my chipsets that I'm working with, as they just never meshed as well as I'd hoped. I did the best I could with them, even had a few decent ones that were erased, but nothing amazing. I'll want to change that for the future version.

Finally, the game will be longer than the planned 8 eps (which were only around 20 mins each). It will be a full game.

Anyways... I'm very sorry to the subscribers. It will be a lot longer before this sees the light of day. It will come back, however, someday... but for now I'm going back to the EL series. It's still salvageable.

Miscellaneous

I spent a couple hours editing all 3 episodes today. It's still a rather short play through, but hopefully it's entertaining enough.

I just sent the demo to Amerk so he can help me decide on the battle system and help find extra bugs, and I'll be making a couple extra graphical edits before I upload the final demo here.

The game is extremely easy, as it is more focused on the characters than anything. I clocked in about an hour for all 3 eps combined, and new players shouldn't take much longer. It's been a long time in the making because of my CBS, so if I decide to ditch it, at least the rest of the game will end up being finished faster. Hell, I may even go ahead and make more episodes than I originally intended to.